


So Much Younger Than My Years

by lackofpatience



Series: The Lion and the Thorn [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Flashbacks, Infidelity, other pairings are really just background because
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:39:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5401595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lackofpatience/pseuds/lackofpatience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>By the time the Hero of Ferelden has been their guest for the better part of a week and the rumours begin swirling that she plans on tagging along with the next caravan east, however, even he has to own up to two facts.  One, that he’s been avoiding her on purpose, and two, that he’ll never forgive himself if he misses her entirely.</i>
</p><p>A meeting, a memory, a memento, and a mistake.</p><p>(Cullen and his valiant attempts to understand Neria Surana, then and now.  Prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5373362">Go Find Some Trouble</a>, if you need to know where things are heading.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Be Careful; Mind the Strangle Vines

When she pays her first visit to Skyhold, it’s days before Cullen even sees her. At first it’s an easy enough matter to ignore, she spending most of her time with Leliana in the rookery, and he busy as ever with the myriad duties that always seem to stack up faster whenever the Inquisitor is abroad, cleaning up the mess of a world they somehow found each other in. By the time the Hero of Ferelden has been their guest for the better part of a week and the rumours begin swirling that she plans on tagging along with the next caravan east, however, even he has to own up to two facts. One, that he’s been avoiding her on purpose, and two, that he’ll never forgive himself if he misses her entirely.

 

_The first time he sees her, she takes his breath away. She doesn’t sit alone, but she somehow still strikes him as being entirely separate from all the others. Every now and then, one of the other apprentices will make some comment or ask her a question, and she’ll laugh, or nod, or reply with something that sets everyone else off, and then just as quickly return to her studies. It’s like she has some sort of aura about her, this impenetrable field that keeps everyone else at arm’s length without actually driving them away. Together, yet apart, and Cullen instantly wants to walk over and experience it himself, find out who she is, try to understand what exactly it is about her that does it, how it works. Of course, that would be inappropriate, and the instant she happens to look over in his general direction, he freezes like a hart in torchlight before turning and marching awkwardly away._

_His armour doesn’t fit quite right yet, but he’s been assured that it breaks in quickly._

 

She sits alone in a far corner on the second floor of the Herald’s Rest, exactly where he’d heard she’d taken to spending her evenings. There are papers scattered across the table before her, and while she seems busy, it doesn’t stop the occasional passer-by from falling into her orbit and offering a greeting or a wave, which she returns with good nature. No one ever stops to join her, though, even though by all rights, she should be drowning in offers of ale and obnoxious tavern games. Together, yet apart, and Cullen is struck by the strongest sense of déjà vu, right up until she happens to look up and over to where he lingers by the stairs. It’s the glance of a moment, and then she’s right back to shuffling papers about before her, but it’s enough to get Cullen’s legs moving as he winds his way to her table.

 

_The first time he speaks to her, his mouth betrays him. He’s thought about it at least a dozen times now, whenever he’s found himself in the same room as her, and it’s always a rather straightforward affair in his imagination. A polite smile, some mumbled formalities, introductions, and no more. He’s not looking to befriend her or anything absurd like that, obviously, he just wants to experience her, briefly be the focus of her luminous attention, to see how it works, how she can keep everyone and everything at bay without isolating herself. Maybe then he’ll understand why he’s the only one who seems to even notice._

_The reality is nowhere near as elegant._

_He approaches her the very first time he catches her alone, poring over some baffling tome in the library, before realizing that he has no reason to do so, no hook to hang his precious formalities on. Instead, all he can do is stammer out an interruption and hold his breath when she closes the book to humour him. Not two minutes later, he’s walking away again with absolutely no more understanding of her than he started with, but at least he has a name and the knowledge that she’s got his. The next time will be easier._

_The tower doesn’t feel like home yet, but whenever she passes him in its halls, he thinks that he gets a little bit closer._

 

She looks different, but Cullen’s hard-pressed to say how. Time and tide haven’t dimmed her beauty any, and her features all seem right, but they’re stronger somehow, more pronounced. She still stands apart from the world, shining like a beacon that only he ever seems to notice, but if he wasn’t already looking for her, he’s honestly not sure that he would have immediately recognized her based on looks alone. It’s going to be difficult to replace the girl of his memories with the woman she is, and he doubts that his mind will ever fully comply, but he also knows that the attempt is long overdue.

 

 _The first time he touches her, he knows that he’s in trouble. It’s innocent, of course, it was never like_ that _between them. Everything that follows is what proves to be the problem._

_It’s after curfew when he comes across her hidden behind one of the bookcases, frantically scooping up texts, a candle burnt down to nothing at her side. “I lost track of the time, I’m sorry, I’m going right away,” she explains in a rush, standing up too quickly and causing a trio of hastily-rolled parchments to roll right off of the books in her arms. Cullen’s quick, though, and he moves to catch them, crushing them only slightly between gauntleted fingers and stammering an apology as he does so. She just smiles gratefully, and he takes this as a cue to help her with the rest of her load, arms brushing against hers by necessity as he takes some of the heavier books. And in that moment, something changes._

_She’s never looked at him like the others do (and by him, he means templars in general, naturally, he’s never been special in her eyes and he won’t fool himself into thinking otherwise) to begin with. The older mages seem to treat him like he’s part of the furniture, which he’s actually come to prefer to the fear the younger apprentices exude and try their best to hide. But not her. She looks the templars right in whatever she can see of their eyes at any given time, she smiles, she acknowledges them without tiptoeing around them. And while he’s fairly certain that it’s not entirely genuine, that she resents his presence as much as anyone else there, his months of attempting to decipher the true meanings of her gaze haven’t gotten him any farther than ‘yes, there is definitely something more going on here.’_

_And then it goes and changes on him. Her brow draws down the way it does when she’s puzzling over some arcane incantation and refuses to call one her instructors over to help and her lips purse at an angle like she drank her tea too hot while hearing a particularly funny joke and her eyes are locked on his the entire time. He has no idea what it’s all about, but then the look is gone and she’s back to her usual cordial self with one exception: she starts talking. And not the rushed excuses of an apprentice caught where she shouldn’t be after lights out, nor the polite responses she’s always given him when he’s approached her before; this time, she speaks in earnest. Thanking him for his assistance, telling him how relieved she is that he’s not one of the older, sterner templars who would never take the time, explaining the particular bit of magic that required such focus to study, admitting her nerves at the rumours that she’d be undergoing her Harrowing soon, going on until he remembers himself and offers to escort her back to her quarters before they_ both _wind up in hot water for shirking their respected responsibilities._

_It’s not really an offer, and they both know it. Still, she talks to him now, and Cullen ends up getting absolutely no sleep that night as he tosses and turns and wonders why._

_He tells himself that he’ll understand her eventually, that one day he’ll take such things for granted as easily as he does the lyrium song in his veins, just another interesting facet of his life now._

_He’s wrong on both counts, there._

 

“Warden-Commander Surana?”

Back straight, head held high, hands twisting around the pommel of his sword. He’s got nothing to prove here, he knows, but it’s been long enough that he thinks he might be owed a second first impression, if he’s lucky.

The casually blank expression she first greets him with is enough to tell him that even with all of the luck he has to spare sent off Maker-knows-where with Ellana, he still just might pull it off. It’s an almost comically long moment before recognition crosses Neria’s features like a wave and she breaks into a slightly incredulous grin.

“Commander Rutherford. I was wondering where you were hiding yourself.”

The titles have changed, and so much more, but suddenly the years seem to melt away and all Cullen can remember are the many things about her that he never managed to figure out. After Kinloch, after she’d gone from being the star of his dreams to that of his nightmares, it had all stopped mattering. She was no longer something he cared to understand. Now, though…

“Please. Have a seat.”


	2. The Rose is a'Climbing Over Blind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snippets of a friendly conversation between old acquaintances, that's it. Really!

As it turns out, the indefinable changes that Cullen can’t quite place don’t merely run skin deep. He wasn’t expecting her to be the same woman he never got the chance to know in Ferelden’s Circle, and she isn’t. That's fine. The years hang heavy on her, all of them well-earned, but Cullen still finds in her everything he can think to look for. She’s still quick to smile, quicker to flirt (however inappropriately), meticulous in keeping up with her correspondences, ready to listen to whatever nonsense Cullen finds himself needing to spout. There’s a confidence about her that he _thinks_ might be new -- she holds herself with an air of utter relaxation that makes it fairly clear she could kill everyone in the room with a thought if she really wanted to -- but that’s more of an extension of an attitude she was always possessed of. Even when she wasn’t the smartest one in the room, she would never let anyone see it. The fact that she has a lot more to back it up with now doesn’t explain how _different_ she seems on the whole.

\---

“And so I knew I’d been dragging my heels in talking to you when I heard _Dagna_ of all people had beaten me to it. She’s brilliant, that one, but can get a bit, er, lost in her own world at times.”

“Tell me about it. Honestly, I’m not sure if I should regret sending her to Irving or not. I _don’t_ , but I think I maybe should? She’s a little terrifying.”

“It probably wouldn’t have made a difference in the long run. I don’t see anything being able to have stopped her.”

\---

They talk like the old friends they never were, everything that station and situation stood in the way of before. Even when Cullen insists on growing serious and risks spoiling the whole thing to unburden himself of regrets he’s held for years, she just smiles and rolls her eyes and stills and nods when it eventually becomes clear how important it is to him. She gets it. She gets _him_. So why can’t he manage to say the same?

\---

“Cullen, you don’t have to apologize for a thing.”

“Maybe not, but even so, the things I said, I-”

“It’s like you said, you weren’t yourself. I understood that then, and I understand it now. It’s _fine_.”

“It is _not_ fine! It’s not- Look. You were always… nothing but kind to me.”

“Debatable, but go on.”

“And I was ready to write you off as barely human just like that. Even after the worst of the trauma was passed, I could still think of you fondly enough, but it wasn’t-”

“You do realize I’m not actually human, right?”

“Maker’s _breath_ , that’s not what I… Of course I… Alright, the laughing really isn’t making this any easier.”

“I’m sorry, okay, I’ll stop, keep going.”

\---

For years, Cullen has thought he misremembered _that_ look. He knows that he overly romanticized pretty much all of their interactions at the time, a situation that was only made worse when the memories became tainted and twisted up from what they truly were, and an inscrutable gaze in a darkened library seemed to fit right into that narrative. A moment his addled mind made up in an effort to spin something from nothing, to give the pain he felt more roots to thrive on. But now everything is different, and she’s accepted him, and he reaches out to rest one gloved hand on her wrist in some effort to impart just how much that means, and… there it is. Brow drawn down, slight twist to her lips, and she seems to… make a decision? Is _that_ what that look is?

\---

“You look good, Cullen. I’m happy for you.”

“Well… thank you. I can’t say it’s been easy, but I’m… happy for me, too.”

“Everything you’ve done here, everything you’ve accomplished, it’s incredible.”

“That’s hardly on _me_ , the Inquisition is a-”

“No, that’s what I mean, all of it, everyone, it’s… It just really makes me wish I could have been a part of it, you know?”

“We would have loved to have you. You were busy with your own affairs, though, there isn’t anything wrong with that.”

“Still am, too. I guess you’re right.”

“ _There’s_ something I don’t hear often.”

\---

Once again, it’s a touch that changes everything, and once again, Cullen is left wondering what exactly happened, feeling as if he missed something important.

At least he doesn’t stammer anymore.

\---

“Can I show you something, Commander?”

“What sort of something?”

“Just… I think you might get a kick out of it. It’s back in my room, if you’ll…?”

“By all means, lead the way.”

\---

Once again, he helps carry her things back to her quarters far too long after the sun has fled. Once again, she talks all the way there, while he’s just happy to be on the other end of it, and if they think they might actually be doing anything wrong, then they’re both keenly pretending otherwise. The only difference aside from the extra years of baggage they both bear is that, this time, he follows her inside.


	3. ‘Cause the Sun is on the Other Side

“Wait, there was a _song?_ No, I haven’t heard it!” She’s laughing, and as much as Cullen would love to join her, he can’t help the scowl he bears as he regrets his admission. “Don’t leave me in suspense, how does it end? What happens to the poor young templar and the mage he loved?”

All Cullen can do is sigh and give a noise of disgust that Cassandra would surely be proud of. “She’s made tranquil as a result of his affections while he goes mad, murders three apprentices, and is cut down.”

“Ooooh, that is… unfortunate,” Neria replies with a wince, nevertheless trailing off into a giggle in spite of absolutely nothing about the circumstances being remotely funny.

“It wasn’t exactly a _smart_ ballad to be caught singing in Kirkwall, so I’ve never actually heard the whole thing. Second-hand reports were more than enough for me.”

“I should see if your bard knows it!”

“Don’t you _dare_.”

“What about your fair lady Inquisitor? From everything I’ve heard of her, she absolutely seems like the type to have already asked.”

“Which is why I’ll never tell her it exists,” Cullen snaps back with another sigh before a worrying realization hits him. “Maker, unless Varric already has…”

“Oh, relax. They’re writing much better songs about you these days, anyway. How does that one go? ‘Stayed with the fight, stout and bright’?”

Somewhere in all of this, he ends up in her quarters, and as the heavy wooden door closes behind him and she walks across the room to rummage through a drawer, Cullen at least has the presence of mind to realize how this might look to an outside observer. As he did more than a decade earlier, though, he finds himself not caring overmuch. Whether she’s a young mage under his guard or a visiting war hero, there’s nothing untoward in simply being friendly, even if simple probably isn’t the right word with so many variables at play. _He_ knows he’s not doing anything wrong, and that’s all that matters, right?

“Er, something like that. Nothing compared to the epics that were penned about your exploits after the Blight, to be certain,” Cullen deflects, standing awkwardly by the door and trying to figure out what to do with his hands. The room is spartan, only a staff in the corner standing as evidence that it’s even occupied, certainly lending credence to the talk that she has no plans to stick around, and the one drawer she searches seems to contain the entirety of her belongings. Of course, with the way reports state she simply _walked_ out of the Western Approach and into one of their camps, alone and with no fanfare, he supposes it makes sense that she would be traveling light. Cullen finds himself wondering just when was the last time that _wasn’t_ the case, when she interrupts his judgments with a soft exclamation of discovery and moves to sit on the edge of her bed, beckoning him over.

“Found it!” Neria says brightly, holding a small amulet on a cheap filigree chain before her for Cullen to take, standing in front of her with a slight frown. It’s a medallion of Andraste, the sort of small token to be found littering any proper Chantry in Thedas. Maybe worth a bit of sentimental value if one was particularly pious, but otherwise nothing special. Why should she want to show it to him, specifically? Unless…

“Wait, you don’t mean to say… This isn’t…”

Neria just smiles, a small, secret thing so far from her previous teasing that Cullen needs to take a seat, the sudden weight of both him and his armor on the bed causing her to lean in towards him a bit. Unconsciously, of course.

“I swear it isn’t as weird as it seems,” she’s quick to assure him, but Cullen’s having a hard time hearing her, running a thumb over the flimsy piece, the image on it worn down to little more than a smooth, prophet-shaped silhouette. It’s a wonder it hasn’t disintegrated entirely, really.

“I can’t believe you kept it. I didn’t even think you were much of a believer.”

“Oh, I’m not, believe _that_ ,” Neria chuckles, and she actually seems… timid? He never would have thought she was capable of expressing such a feeling. Even that night when they came for her, took her from the apprentice quarters by cover of night, when he’d quietly broken the rigid formalities to slip the medallion in her pocket when no one was looking, it was more to quiet his _own_ nerves than anything else. She'd been as fearless as ever, unflinching in spite of her previous confessions to the contrary. “It’s just… when Duncan recruited me into the Grey Wardens, I didn’t exactly have whole lot of time to pack. I hadn’t even spread out into my new room yet, I pretty much just grabbed whatever happened to still be at the top of my trunk and ran. It wasn’t some conscious decision to take it, it just happened to come along, you know?”

“Still,” Cullen murmurs, still turning it reverently between his fingers like a talisman. “To hang onto it for all these years?”

Neria shrugs. “Everything else I took with me were clothes, which obviously didn’t last too long on the road. This ended up being the only thing I had from… my life before the Wardens. Still is, I guess.”

Cullen lets out a slow exhale, shaking his head. “Maker, that’s… When I gave it to you, I was just trying to protect you in whatever way I could, I never dreamed…” he breathes, and while her expression doesn’t shift any, for a moment, he swears he catches _something_ in her eyes, a steel that wasn’t there a moment ago. It’s gone just as quickly, however, leaving him wondering both if he imagined it and if he’ll ever be able to know with any certainty what the woman before him is thinking.

“Just one of those funny things, I guess. I know it doesn’t seem like much now, but during that first year, trying to stop the Blight, it ended up meaning a lot to me. Always having that reminder of why I was doing it all.”

That gives Cullen pause. Why she was doing it all? How did _that_ fit? She certainly wasn’t out and about saving the world for him, or for the Chantry. She’d all but admitted the item itself was meaningless aside from its significance as the last artifact of her old life. Why should that have motivated her forward into legend? It’s then that something clicks, and suddenly his little token seems to possess much less of the nice sentiment he’d been so struck by, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it because her hand is coming up.

She moves slowly, gives him more than enough time to react, to make a _choice_ to react. That’s where the problem lies. Had she moved quickly, it would have been easy, natural, a purely automatic thing to gently reach up, rebuff the advance, smile slightly as he shook his head. She would relent with a small nod of understanding, maybe grant him another one of those maybe-bashful-maybe-something-else-entirely laughs and say something to defuse the situation. ‘Can’t blame a girl for trying, right?’ or something of the sort. No harm, no foul.

But that’s not what happens. Her movement is so slow, so deliberate that Cullen doesn’t need to rely on the automatic in order to do the right thing. He has time to think about it. And in that time, the only thing that actually comes to mind with any clarity is the knowledge that he has never once felt the touch of her skin on his. Not now, not before, not ever, and suddenly he has to know just how different it might be from the friendly, casual touches that had previously seemed so notable even through armour. It’s in the waiting that he’s lost.

She rests her palm gently against his cheek, her touch feather-light as she delicately traces his scar with her thumb, starting right at the top and moving down. Cullen can’t help but close his eyes, because he’ll stop her in a moment, but that just makes it all the more important for this one to _count_. Her touch follows the natural path to the corner of his mouth and then down, ghosting carefully across the swell of his bottom lip as he first barely remembers to breathe, then forgets entirely when her thumb is replaced by her mouth on his.

He parts his lips out of surprise more than anything, her kiss just as light as her prior touches, barely-there brushes of her mouth as she strokes his cheek and shifts just a touch closer to him on the bed. It’s Cullen who both deepens it and immediately breaks it off, drawing back from her completely at the very first tentative touch of his tongue to hers.

He needs to take a rather large breath in order to brace himself, and the flush on his cheeks rises a little higher when he realizes he’s pressed a hand against her chest to push her back, but he sticks to his mark, however belatedly, shaking his head once.

“I’m sorry, I-I can’t. I _really_ can’t, you know that.”

“I know no such thing,” Neria says, all mock-innocence before she smiles… sadly? Knowingly? Maker, why can’t Cullen _read_ her? “But I understand.” She stands up, leaving Cullen to his hammering heart and the looming spectre of guilt that he can’t quite feel yet while she returns to the drawer she left open. As he rises unsteadily to his own feet, he catches a glimpse of a small leather pouch as she rolls it back up, nothing left inside but a few coins and what looks to be the dried, crumbled remains of a rose.

“I should go,” he manages, entirely unnecessarily as he makes for the door, trying not to simply bolt all the way across Skyhold as is his first instinct. As his hand falls on the handle, however, he feels hers on his shoulder and turns with a start, to which she puts both hands up in a good-natured defensive gesture. He hadn’t even heard her _move_!

“Sorry, it’s just…” she starts cautiously before fixing him with as obvious a look as he’s seen on her tonight. “I’m here to the end of the week.”

Cullen is halfway back to his office before he even notices that he’s still clutching her medallion in one gloved fist.

 

 

_(He gives in two nights later. Standing outside her door for what feels like an eternity, long after the hours when any sound decisions are made, he waits for a sign, some conclusive message from on high that he needs to turn around and just go to bed, wait for the woman he loves to return home to him so his life can resume. Instead, Surana’s door opens to him without a knock or a call or any manner of whispered entreaty. She’s been waiting. She knew._

_It’s nothing as simple or crude as giving in to physical temptations, he’s a master at resisting those. It was the taste she gave him, right at the end, of what it’s like to understand her, where she’s coming from. He still doesn’t know if that was deliberate or not, but as he finally (finally) presses inside her for the first time, it feels like coming home to a place he never wanted to see again and he conclusively understands the full meaning of his gift to her, that night that she was Harrowed.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned, this leads directly into [Go Find Some Trouble](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5373362), if you haven't read that yet, but I kinda hope both can stand on their own?
> 
> Am I done with these two? They're so screwed up and upsetting, who knows?


End file.
